Latest news with #FreedomDay
The Age
02-07-2025
- Business
- The Age
The tech billionaire, the beautician and the backlash
Sitting up the front of the plane, an Oregon beautician took a selfie while on the 17-hour flight across the North Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong to rendezvous with an Australian billionaire. 'He better be worth it,' Kimberlee Cvitash wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post from May this year. The billionaire in question was Richard White, 70, a musician and former guitar repairer who founded global logistics software giant WiseTech in 1994. In the past year, White's complicated personal life, including multiple relationships with women, including WiseTech employees, has resulted in board upheaval following a number of complaints about inappropriate conduct, a number of which have been settled. Engineer Greg Williams, who met White decades ago while both were members of the Church of Scientology, and before they became band members, observed that the billionaire was 'insecure on his own' and, in recent years, he witnessed White requesting an employee, whom he named, to spend the night with him. Cvitash, whom White flew to Hong Kong to be with him in May, posted a not-so-subtle photo during their stay. The photo of a shopfront read: 'Billionaire Boys Club' – the luxury streetwear brand founded by American rapper Pharrell Williams. White is Australia's 15th-richest person, with a $10.6 billion fortune. 'Happy Freedom Day from Australia … I love my Bexley guitar player,' Cvitash posted during a visit to White's Bexley compound in July last year. An investigation by The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal that the controversial businessman is supporting Cvitash, who runs Skin Wise Academy in Portland. The beautician receives a sizable monthly allowance and has told friends that White picked up the $30,000 tab for her breast augmentation surgery and face work. White is also paying the $11,000 monthly rental for Cvitash's four-bedroom lakeside property on the outskirts of Portland. In February 2024, Cvitash posted a photo of 'my new little home' with the hashtag #welllovedwoman and the flags of Australia and the US linked by a love heart. White's multitude of property dealings for his paramours have resulted in a flurry of unwelcome publicity over the past year, and a slew of confidential settlements, which have been uncovered as part of ongoing investigations into allegations of inappropriate conduct, intimidation and bullying – all of which have been denied by White. In October last year, wellness entrepreneur Linda Rogan claimed White expected her to have sex with him in exchange for an investment in her business. The claims were made as part of a legal stoush in which Rogan sued White over a $92,000 furniture bill. Rogan claimed she was stuck with the bill after White's now-wife Zena Nasser, a former criminal lawyer, discovered the affair and kicked her rival out of the $13.1 million Vaucluse house White had secretly purchased for Rogan in September 2022. White, Nasser and Cvitash did not respond to questions. At the same time Nasser was brutally ending one of White's property deals, she was embroiling him in a new one with her ex-husband. Questionable loans Mark Merhi, who left Australia in mid-2022 with $80 million in corporate debts owed by his companies, recommended White finance three property developments in western Sydney, including one he'd sold to an associate on the cheap before his business collapsed. After a joint investigation by the Financial Review, the Herald and The Age revealed the existence of White's $70 million loan to Ahmad Ahmad, a nut roaster from Lakemba, the WiseTech founder publicly claimed he was calling in the loans and would move to sell the three sites if the money wasn't forthcoming. Five months later, the loans remain outstanding and White is down $70 million, plus interest. There has been no indication White has moved to take control of the properties and sell them. Meanwhile, his company RealWise Finance remains the lender to the developments, according to property records. Documents obtained during the joint investigation show that for more than a year, White had not bothered to formalise the loan agreement. White began lending money to Ahmad's companies in November 2022, starting with $5 million, followed by $3 million in May 2023. A formal loan agreement was finally drawn up in August 2023, which drastically increased White's loans to Ahmad's companies to $53 million. By March 2024, the loan increased to $70 million. Ahmad's companies bought one property – a former Aldi supermarket which had been owned by a Merhi company – for $13.5 million in September 2020. This was $5.5 million less than Merhi's company paid for it five years earlier. Helm Advisory liquidator Stephen Hathway told creditors the sale may have been an uncommercial transaction as the site 'had potential sale value of $23,300,000', in an October 2022 report. Privately, White's friends and associates have expressed dismay over his involvement with Merhi, who had a colourful history before moving to Dubai. Loading Merhi and his brother, Khalil, who were involved in various companies within the Merhi Group, were central figures in an inquest into four deliberately lit fires, all using stolen cars loaded with accelerants, which were crashed into the properties. Simon Turner, who was the compliance and safety manager for the group of companies run by Mark and Khalil, told the joint investigation that his bosses orchestrated the four firebombings between 2006 and 2010. Two of the fires were at a neighbouring property the Merhis had been trying to buy, he said. 'They drove a car through the security gates and the roller door and set it alight,' Turner said of the two fires at the Merhis' neighbouring premises in Seville Street, Fairfield. 'It was exactly the same as what happened at the CFMEU and Bellevue Hill.' Turner said the Merhis were at war with the construction union when they firebombed the CFMEU's Lidcombe office. The fourth fire was in Bellevue Hill. Turner recalls receiving a call from Khalil Merhi about the Bellevue Hill development site, where the Merhis were in dispute with the owner. 'That prick owes us money … get all the gear out of the office,' Khalil is alleged to have said. Turner said the original plan was to crash a 100-tonne crane onto the site but it was then decided to use a car loaded with accelerant. The fires were linked to organisations or people who'd had 'confrontations or disagreements with Khalil Merhi and/or Mark Merhi,' Coroner Michael Barnes found in 2016. On May 12, 2010, the day before the Lidcombe firebombing, Mark Merhi had a tense discussion with a CFMEU executive about his company's alleged breaches of employment and taxation laws. Later that day, in a phone call, Khalil threatened to 'take the union down', the coroner noted. A petrol-contaminated glove found at the CFMEU fire contained DNA which was matched to brothers Jalal and Emad Alameddine. According to the coroner's report, each of the four cars used in the firebombings had been stolen from the Punchbowl area. 'Both men have committed offences of car stealing and the vehicles used in each of the fires were stolen from an area close to where the two men lived,' the coroner found. Loading But, ultimately, there was not enough evidence to make a conclusive finding and no charges were laid. Land title records show that on Christmas Eve 2009, nine months after the second firebombing of the Seville Street premises, the owner gave in and sold to the Merhis. The transfer was witnessed by the Merhis' solicitor Zena Nasser, who had married Mark Merhi in October 2009. Once they'd bought it, the Merhis used it as their headquarters. Turner, who worked there, said Nasser had an office on the top floor and a parade of bikies Nasser was legally representing would troop up the stairs to see her. Earlier that year, The Daily Telegraph described Nasser, 29 at the time, as a 'Rolex-wearing Gucci shoe-clad daughter of a Lebanese developer' who represented a number of prominent bikie gang members. 'Her clients include members of the Notorious bikie gang and Kings Cross nightclub entrepreneur John Ibrahim and his brothers Michael and Sam, former head of the Nomads gang and now believed to be a key player behind Notorious,' the Telegraph reported. Nasser has previously distanced herself from her former husband, saying she was in a relationship with Merhi for less than 18 months 'and they went their separate ways in 2011, the same year their daughter was born'. She said she 'has been the sole carer and a single mother' since then. However, an entity owned by her former husband, Merhis Living, donated $700 to Nasser during a charity bike ride when she was working at major consulting firm EY in 2018. That same year, Merhi's company became a shareholder in a short-lived lingerie business, Alexa Intimates, founded by Nasser. Property records also reflect the dealings Nasser had with her former husband. Nasser bought two properties from his companies in 2014 and 2017. She acquired an apartment in Rickard Street, Bankstown, in 2017 from Rickard Apartments – a company Merhi founded – for $550,000. Nasser later sold this apartment at a $95,000 loss to former champion bodybuilder and convicted steroid dealer Sidique Tarawally in 2022. Merhi had also sold an apartment in a different building to Tarawally two years earlier. Police raided Tarawally's home in Bankstown, in Sydney's south-west, in March 2024. He was convicted but given a two-year community correction order this year, avoiding jail. There is no suggestion Nasser or White were aware of any of the illegal activities of Tarawally or Mark Chikarovski, who purchased the Vaucluse mansion, which was also sold at a substantial loss. Using a front company, White bought the Dalley Avenue house for $13.1 million in September 2022, watching the online auction under a pseudonym, Rick LeBlanc. However, just three weeks after Rogan collected the keys, White's now-wife Nasser discovered the relationship and kicked Rogan out of the home. Five months later, it was sold at a $1.6 million loss to Chikarovski, who was later convicted of running a lucrative drug business on the dark web under the username AusCokeKing. It turns out that wasn't the first house White had bought for a friend or lover and made a loss on. White bought a four-bedroom waterside house in the southern Sydney suburb of Oatley for another WiseTech employee he was in a relationship with for $1.8 million in 2018. Two years later, White sold the property for a $75,000 loss. In 2022, White forked out $1.6 million for a four-bedroom house in Narara, near Gosford on the NSW Central Coast. He offloaded it in May this year at a $500,000 loss. His mate Greg Williams, a fellow former Scientologist who was working for White, had been renting the place until the pair fell out in mid-2023. Loading Williams has theorised that White began using the name 'Wise' in his companies as a way of 'giving the middle finger' to the Scientology organisation they'd both once belonged to. The World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE) was established by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard with the expectation that members would utilise WISE's principles in their own business organisations. Williams said he and White had fallen out over the Narara lease agreement and the purchase of a CB radio because of the lack of phone reception at White's holiday home at Sentry Rock. Williams had been supervising work at the luxury estate on the Hawkesbury River purchased by White for $12 million in 2020. 'I could crush you,' were White's parting words to him, Williams recalled. Witnessing the conversation at White's Bexley compound was another former Scientologist, Reg Kennedy, White's driver and gofer. Kennedy has frequently featured as a director for companies White has used in his property purchases. Kennedy resides in one of the six townhouses within the billionaire's Bexley compound. After returning to Oregon after a visit to White in July 2024, she posted a video showing a view from one of the townhouses. 'I miss the birds in Bexley and him,' Cvitash said.
Sydney Morning Herald
02-07-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The tech billionaire, the beautician and the backlash
Sitting up the front of the plane, an Oregon beautician took a selfie while on the 17-hour flight across the North Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong to rendezvous with an Australian billionaire. 'He better be worth it,' Kimberlee Cvitash wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post from May this year. The billionaire in question was Richard White, 70, a musician and former guitar repairer who founded global logistics software giant WiseTech in 1994. In the past year, White's complicated personal life, including multiple relationships with women, including WiseTech employees, has resulted in board upheaval following a number of complaints about inappropriate conduct, a number of which have been settled. Engineer Greg Williams, who met White decades ago while both were members of the Church of Scientology, and before they became band members, observed that the billionaire was 'insecure on his own' and, in recent years, he witnessed White requesting an employee, whom he named, to spend the night with him. Cvitash, whom White flew to Hong Kong to be with him in May, posted a not-so-subtle photo during their stay. The photo of a shopfront read: 'Billionaire Boys Club' – the luxury streetwear brand founded by American rapper Pharrell Williams. White is Australia's 15th-richest person, with a $10.6 billion fortune. 'Happy Freedom Day from Australia … I love my Bexley guitar player,' Cvitash posted during a visit to White's Bexley compound in July last year. An investigation by The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal that the controversial businessman is supporting Cvitash, who runs Skin Wise Academy in Portland. The beautician receives a sizable monthly allowance and has told friends that White picked up the $30,000 tab for her breast augmentation surgery and face work. White is also paying the $11,000 monthly rental for Cvitash's four-bedroom lakeside property on the outskirts of Portland. In February 2024, Cvitash posted a photo of 'my new little home' with the hashtag #welllovedwoman and the flags of Australia and the US linked by a love heart. White's multitude of property dealings for his paramours have resulted in a flurry of unwelcome publicity over the past year, and a slew of confidential settlements, which have been uncovered as part of ongoing investigations into allegations of inappropriate conduct, intimidation and bullying – all of which have been denied by White. In October last year, wellness entrepreneur Linda Rogan claimed White expected her to have sex with him in exchange for an investment in her business. The claims were made as part of a legal stoush in which Rogan sued White over a $92,000 furniture bill. Rogan claimed she was stuck with the bill after White's now-wife Zena Nasser, a former criminal lawyer, discovered the affair and kicked her rival out of the $13.1 million Vaucluse house White had secretly purchased for Rogan in September 2022. White, Nasser and Cvitash did not respond to questions. At the same time Nasser was brutally ending one of White's property deals, she was embroiling him in a new one with her ex-husband. Questionable loans Mark Merhi, who left Australia in mid-2022 with $80 million in corporate debts owed by his companies, recommended White finance three property developments in western Sydney, including one he'd sold to an associate on the cheap before his business collapsed. After a joint investigation by the Financial Review, the Herald and The Age revealed the existence of White's $70 million loan to Ahmad Ahmad, a nut roaster from Lakemba, the WiseTech founder publicly claimed he was calling in the loans and would move to sell the three sites if the money wasn't forthcoming. Five months later, the loans remain outstanding and White is down $70 million, plus interest. There has been no indication White has moved to take control of the properties and sell them. Meanwhile, his company RealWise Finance remains the lender to the developments, according to property records. Documents obtained during the joint investigation show that for more than a year, White had not bothered to formalise the loan agreement. White began lending money to Ahmad's companies in November 2022, starting with $5 million, followed by $3 million in May 2023. A formal loan agreement was finally drawn up in August 2023, which drastically increased White's loans to Ahmad's companies to $53 million. By March 2024, the loan increased to $70 million. Ahmad's companies bought one property – a former Aldi supermarket which had been owned by a Merhi company – for $13.5 million in September 2020. This was $5.5 million less than Merhi's company paid for it five years earlier. Helm Advisory liquidator Stephen Hathway told creditors the sale may have been an uncommercial transaction as the site 'had potential sale value of $23,300,000', in an October 2022 report. Privately, White's friends and associates have expressed dismay over his involvement with Merhi, who had a colourful history before moving to Dubai. Loading Merhi and his brother, Khalil, who were involved in various companies within the Merhi Group, were central figures in an inquest into four deliberately lit fires, all using stolen cars loaded with accelerants, which were crashed into the properties. Simon Turner, who was the compliance and safety manager for the group of companies run by Mark and Khalil, told the joint investigation that his bosses orchestrated the four firebombings between 2006 and 2010. Two of the fires were at a neighbouring property the Merhis had been trying to buy, he said. 'They drove a car through the security gates and the roller door and set it alight,' Turner said of the two fires at the Merhis' neighbouring premises in Seville Street, Fairfield. 'It was exactly the same as what happened at the CFMEU and Bellevue Hill.' Turner said the Merhis were at war with the construction union when they firebombed the CFMEU's Lidcombe office. The fourth fire was in Bellevue Hill. Turner recalls receiving a call from Khalil Merhi about the Bellevue Hill development site, where the Merhis were in dispute with the owner. 'That prick owes us money … get all the gear out of the office,' Khalil is alleged to have said. Turner said the original plan was to crash a 100-tonne crane onto the site but it was then decided to use a car loaded with accelerant. The fires were linked to organisations or people who'd had 'confrontations or disagreements with Khalil Merhi and/or Mark Merhi,' Coroner Michael Barnes found in 2016. On May 12, 2010, the day before the Lidcombe firebombing, Mark Merhi had a tense discussion with a CFMEU executive about his company's alleged breaches of employment and taxation laws. Later that day, in a phone call, Khalil threatened to 'take the union down', the coroner noted. A petrol-contaminated glove found at the CFMEU fire contained DNA which was matched to brothers Jalal and Emad Alameddine. According to the coroner's report, each of the four cars used in the firebombings had been stolen from the Punchbowl area. 'Both men have committed offences of car stealing and the vehicles used in each of the fires were stolen from an area close to where the two men lived,' the coroner found. Loading But, ultimately, there was not enough evidence to make a conclusive finding and no charges were laid. Land title records show that on Christmas Eve 2009, nine months after the second firebombing of the Seville Street premises, the owner gave in and sold to the Merhis. The transfer was witnessed by the Merhis' solicitor Zena Nasser, who had married Mark Merhi in October 2009. Once they'd bought it, the Merhis used it as their headquarters. Turner, who worked there, said Nasser had an office on the top floor and a parade of bikies Nasser was legally representing would troop up the stairs to see her. Earlier that year, The Daily Telegraph described Nasser, 29 at the time, as a 'Rolex-wearing Gucci shoe-clad daughter of a Lebanese developer' who represented a number of prominent bikie gang members. 'Her clients include members of the Notorious bikie gang and Kings Cross nightclub entrepreneur John Ibrahim and his brothers Michael and Sam, former head of the Nomads gang and now believed to be a key player behind Notorious,' the Telegraph reported. Nasser has previously distanced herself from her former husband, saying she was in a relationship with Merhi for less than 18 months 'and they went their separate ways in 2011, the same year their daughter was born'. She said she 'has been the sole carer and a single mother' since then. However, an entity owned by her former husband, Merhis Living, donated $700 to Nasser during a charity bike ride when she was working at major consulting firm EY in 2018. That same year, Merhi's company became a shareholder in a short-lived lingerie business, Alexa Intimates, founded by Nasser. Property records also reflect the dealings Nasser had with her former husband. Nasser bought two properties from his companies in 2014 and 2017. She acquired an apartment in Rickard Street, Bankstown, in 2017 from Rickard Apartments – a company Merhi founded – for $550,000. Nasser later sold this apartment at a $95,000 loss to former champion bodybuilder and convicted steroid dealer Sidique Tarawally in 2022. Merhi had also sold an apartment in a different building to Tarawally two years earlier. Police raided Tarawally's home in Bankstown, in Sydney's south-west, in March 2024. He was convicted but given a two-year community correction order this year, avoiding jail. There is no suggestion Nasser or White were aware of any of the illegal activities of Tarawally or Mark Chikarovski, who purchased the Vaucluse mansion, which was also sold at a substantial loss. Using a front company, White bought the Dalley Avenue house for $13.1 million in September 2022, watching the online auction under a pseudonym, Rick LeBlanc. However, just three weeks after Rogan collected the keys, White's now-wife Nasser discovered the relationship and kicked Rogan out of the home. Five months later, it was sold at a $1.6 million loss to Chikarovski, who was later convicted of running a lucrative drug business on the dark web under the username AusCokeKing. It turns out that wasn't the first house White had bought for a friend or lover and made a loss on. White bought a four-bedroom waterside house in the southern Sydney suburb of Oatley for another WiseTech employee he was in a relationship with for $1.8 million in 2018. Two years later, White sold the property for a $75,000 loss. In 2022, White forked out $1.6 million for a four-bedroom house in Narara, near Gosford on the NSW Central Coast. He offloaded it in May this year at a $500,000 loss. His mate Greg Williams, a fellow former Scientologist who was working for White, had been renting the place until the pair fell out in mid-2023. Loading Williams has theorised that White began using the name 'Wise' in his companies as a way of 'giving the middle finger' to the Scientology organisation they'd both once belonged to. The World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE) was established by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard with the expectation that members would utilise WISE's principles in their own business organisations. Williams said he and White had fallen out over the Narara lease agreement and the purchase of a CB radio because of the lack of phone reception at White's holiday home at Sentry Rock. Williams had been supervising work at the luxury estate on the Hawkesbury River purchased by White for $12 million in 2020. 'I could crush you,' were White's parting words to him, Williams recalled. Witnessing the conversation at White's Bexley compound was another former Scientologist, Reg Kennedy, White's driver and gofer. Kennedy has frequently featured as a director for companies White has used in his property purchases. Kennedy resides in one of the six townhouses within the billionaire's Bexley compound. After returning to Oregon after a visit to White in July 2024, she posted a video showing a view from one of the townhouses. 'I miss the birds in Bexley and him,' Cvitash said.
CBS News
21-06-2025
- General
- CBS News
Minnesota's connection to the "fathers of Juneteenth"
Long celebrated by African Americans, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021, and a Minnesota state holiday two years later. Parades, concerts, informal and formal gatherings are just some of the ways families and communities honor what's also called Freedom Day. But it's much more than just a party, says Lee Henry Jordan, National Juneteenth's Midwest and state director. "You need to know the history of what you're commemorating and celebrating," Jordan said. "The 13th Amendment, the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3, we call those some of the 'Freedom Documents.'" Jordan believes all who take part in celebrations should know that in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved people in states that tried to secede from the United States. Two years later, in June 1865, about 2,000 Colored troops marched into Galveston Bay in Texas to enforce General Order No. 3, which formally freed about 250,000 enslaved people who were being held illegally. Jordan calls members of four regiments — the 20th, 28th, 29th and 31st United States Colored Troops — the "fathers of Juneteenth." "The history of the United States Colored Troops, that should be a part of the celebration," Jordan said. Members of the United States Colored Troops. He hopes people look to uncover the freedom story of their own family, diving deep into history. "There were people that didn't get press but still did the work, and those people are in your family," he said. Jordan truly believes someone in his family wore the Union uniform and was in Galveston Bay in 1865. Through his research, he found at least one Minnesotan there. "William Crosley, and the fact that he's buried in Rochester, Minnesota," he said. "He was at Galveston, Texas, when the United States Colored Troops were there. So if he was there, who else was there?" He believes following a trail of history can unlock your family's freedom story. "There is a continuing story, energy, power, whatever you want to call it, that's connected to freedom," he said. "Find whatever that is for you, bring that to a Juneteenth celebration, and trust me, you will find a kindred spirit." Kindred spirits with shared history — American history — that should be celebrated by all. "If you don't leave there with a little bit more knowledge of who you are and where you come from and what can be done, then, now I think you're missing a little something," he said. Click here for a list of Juneteenth events this weekend in the Twin Cities, including the Great Minnesota Cookout on the lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol.
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Parties and proclamations: Juneteenth across the diaspora
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. I'm Adria R Walker, a Mississippi-based race and equity reporter for the Guardian US, and I'm excited to be taking over this week. I've been working on a story about the ways Black American communities have celebrated – in many cases, for centuries – the formal end of slavery, which is variously called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and, perhaps most famously, Juneteenth. My article will be published on 19 June, Juneteenth, a federal holiday that was enshrined into law four years ago. In doing this reporting, I've learned a lot about the holiday that I grew up celebrating. For this week's edition of the newsletter, I'll guide you through what Emancipation Day can look like in the US and its legacy. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, which abolished slavery in the states that had seceded during the civil war, though slavery was abolished nationwide when the 13th amendment was ratified on 6 December 1865. News of the proclamation spread varyingly. Some southern enslavers attempted to outrun the order and the Union soldiers who brought news of it, moving the people they had enslaved farther and farther west until the army caught up with them. In Galveston, Texas, it was not until 19 June 1865 that people who were enslaved found out about the declaration. News of that freedom was enshrined in Juneteenth, celebrated annually by Galvestonians and nearby Houstonians. While Juneteenth has become the most famous emancipation celebration, it is far from the only one. I had the idea for the story a couple of years ago, on 8 May 2023, when I became curious about how communities across the south celebrated emancipation historically and in the present day. On that day, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, one of the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, my home town, had shared a newspaper clipping on Instagram about a historic Emancipation Day celebration on 8 May. The 8 May celebrations, which are still observed by the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science and the local community, began in 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Columbus to inform the enslaved people that they were free. Elsewhere, 8 August commemmorates the day the former president Andrew Johnson manumitted (freed) the people he had enslaved – the emancipation proclamation had not applied to Tennessee or West Virginia. William Isom, the director of Black in Appalachia, tells me that Samuel Johnson, a formerly enslaved person, is credited with the spread of 8 August celebrations. In Florida, the day is celebrated on 20 May, honouring that date in 1865 when Union troops read and enforced the emancipation proclamation at the end of the civil war. In Gallia County, Ohio, they have marked 22 September 1862, the day on which Lincoln drafted the emancipation proclamationsince 1863 – making it one of the longest-running emancipation celebrations in the country, Isom says. Some communities have celebrated 1 January since 1863, when Lincoln signed the proclamation, while others celebrate 31 December, or Watch Night, when enslaved and freed Black Americans gathered to hear news of the emancipation proclamation. Watch Night is still observed in Black communities across the south, including in the Carolinas, where Gullah Geechee people observe Freedom's Eve, and elsewhere. As a child, I attended Watch Night services at church in Mississippi, though I didn't appreciate the significance at the time. Whenever and wherever slavery was abolished, formerly enslaved people observed and celebrated the day – this is consistent across the African diaspora. I knew about Emancipation Day festivities in the Caribbean and in Canada, for example, though they are different from those in the US, but I didn't know such celebrations extended to the northern US. In Massachusetts, Emancipation Day, also known as Quock Walker Day, is on 8 July. Quock Walker, born in 1753, sued for and won his freedom in 1781. His case is considered to have helped abolish slavery in Massachusetts. In New York State, the Fifth of July was first celebrated in 1827, an event first held the day after full emancipation was achieved there. After the British empire ended slavery in 1838, many areas in the north began to observe 1 August. In Washington DC, on 16 April, people commemorate the anniversary of the 1862 signing of the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which abolished slavery and freed about 3,000 people in the capital. Under the act, former enslavers were compensated for the people they had enslaved, a common practice during efforts to end slavery around the world. However, the people who had been enslaved did not receive compensation. I vaguely remember attending my first Juneteenth celebration as a little girl. Farish Street, a historic Black district in Jackson, was abuzz with people. Despite it being the middle of summer in Mississippi, the heat didn't stop folks from coming out to eat, dance and socialise. The state is relatively close to Texas – it is about a six-hour drive from Jackson to Houston – so we have quite a bit of cultural overlap. It made sense that we would share holidays. Like many other cultural traditions, Juneteenth spread across the country with the arrival of southern people during the great migration. In the decades since, Juneteenth has been catapulted from a local or regional event to a national and international one – last year, for example, I was invited to attend a Juneteenth event in Toronto, Canada. Other emancipation commemorations travelled, too. The 8 August celebrations, for example, moved throughout Appalachia, through coal country and into urban metropolises such as Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit. Historically, the holiday included celebratory aspects – eating traditional foods, hosting libations, singing, dancing and playing baseball – but also a tangible push for change. Celebrants would gather to find family members from whom they had been separated during slavery, attend lectures and advocate for education, and practise harnessing their political power – something that was particularly relevant in the reconstruction days. For Isom, Juneteenth can become a day that the entire country comes together to celebrate freedom, while communities' specific emancipation celebrations can be hyper-local and hyper-specific. 'Even in [places] where there's not necessarily many Black folks at all, they're having the Juneteenth events,' he says. 'And so the local celebrations – like for here, 8 August or 22 September – that's where I feel like communities can showcase and celebrate their own cultures and traditions around Emancipation Day. We need both.' To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
When is Juneteenth 2025? What to know about the holiday
This week, the nation celebrates its youngest federal holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth marks the events of June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas when the last Black slaves of the Confederacy were ordered free following the arrival of Union troops. The day, also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, rose to national prominence in 2020 amid nationwide protests against ongoing racial inequities, sparked in part by the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. It was officially recognized a federal holiday by President Joe Biden in 2021. Here's what to know about the holiday and what day it occurs. Juneteenth National Independence Day is on Thursday, June 19, this year, and is considered a federal holiday. Juneteenth is considered a bank holiday, according to the Federal Reserve. The United States Postal Service, schools and government offices will also be closed on June 19. The holiday commemorates the full and complete enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation to free enslaved African Americans in secessionist states on Jan. 1, 1863, but enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, would not learn of their freedom until two years later. On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger informed the community of Galveston of Lincoln's proclamation. Although enslaved people had been officially emancipated years prior, enslavers responsible for telling them ignored the order until Union troops arrived to enforce it, founder of Cliff Robinson earlier told USA TODAY. Texas was the last Confederate state to have the proclamation announced. Though the story of Texas' emancipation is the most widely known, president of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation Steve Williams previously told USA TODAY, other significant events in the history of emancipation took place on and around that date. He said the first known Juneteenth celebrations began in 1866 and spread across the country as African Americans migrated to new cities. Juneteenth is a combination of "June" and "nineteenth," in honor of the day that Granger announced the abolition of slavery in Texas. The holiday is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund, Julia Gomez, N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@ and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When is Juneteenth 2025? Explaining the holiday
